A revolution took place there in April 1978. The Afghan people took their des-
tiny into their hands and embarked on the road of independence and freedom. As it
has always been in history, the forces of the past ganged up against the revolution.
The people of Afghanistan, of course, could have coped with them themselves. But
from the very first days of the revolution it encountered an external aggression and
rude interference from outside into their internal affairs.
Thousands and tens of thousands of insurgents, armed and trained abroad, and
whole armed units were sent into the territory of Afghanistan. In effect, imperialism,
together with its accomplices, launched an undeclared war against revolutionary
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan persistently demanded an end to the aggression and that it be allowed
to build its new life in peace. Resisting the external aggression, the Afghan leadership,
during the lifetime of President [Nur Mohammad] Taraki and then later, repeatedly
asked the Soviet Union for assistance. On our part, we warned those concerned that
if the aggression did not stop, we would not abandon the Afghan people at a time of
trial. As is known, we stand by what we say.
The actions of the aggressors against Afghanistan were assisted by [Hafizullah]
Amin, who, upon seizing power, launched cruel repressions against broad segments of
Afghan society, against party and military cadres, against representatives of the intel-
ligentsia and the Moslem clergy, that is, exactly against those segments on which the
April Revolution relied. And the people under the leadership of the People’s Demo-
cratic Party headed by Babrak Karmal rose against this Amin tyranny and put an end
to it. Now in Washington and some other capitals they are mourning over Amin. This
exposes their hypocrisy with particular clarity. Where were these mourners when Amin
was conducting his mass repressions, when he forcibly removed and unlawfully mur-
dered Taraki, the founder of the new Afghan State?
The unceasing armed intervention, the well advanced plot by external forces of
reaction created a real threat that Afghanistan would lose its independence and be
turned into an imperialist military bridgehead on our country’s southern border. In
other words, the time came when we could no longer fail to respond to the request
of the government of friendly Afghanistan. To have acted otherwise would have meant
leaving Afghanistan prey to imperialism and allowing the aggressive forces to repeat in
that country what they had succeeded in doing, for instance, in Chile where the
people’s freedom was drowned in blood. To act otherwise would have meant to watch
passively the origination on our southern border of a seat of serious danger to the secu-
rity of the Soviet state.
When making the request to us, Afghanistan proceeded from clear-cut provisions
of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighborliness and Cooperation, concluded by
Afghanistan with the USSR on December 1978, on the right of each state, in accor-
dance with the United Nations Charter, to individual or collective self-defense, a right
that other states have exercised more than once.
It was no simple decision for us to send Soviet military contingents to Afghanistan.
But the party’s Central Committee and the Soviet Government acted in full aware-
ness of their responsibility and took into account the entire sum total of circumstances.
The only task given to the Soviet contingents is to assist the Afghans in repulsing the
aggression from outside. They will be fully withdrawn from Afghanistan once the
causes that made the Afghan leadership request their introduction disappear.
578 AFGHANISTAN